Pasta News Network - New Zealand

This is a story about influence, the media and Cardinal George Pell. For decades, as he climbed the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, he also worked assiduously to cultivate the press, especially Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp papers.

He dined with journalists and wrote a regular tabloid column. He would frequently telephone opinion writers and introduced his editor to the pope. Above all, he knew the importance of the media to his ambition and his style of politics.

The day after Pell’s death, The Australian published 20 swooning articles, and another 26 up to the middle of this week. More will be there today.

"Convenient." - Rorschach

In a recent speech at Oxford University, renowned thinker and writer Peter Hitchens lamented that conservativism is dead in Western society, that the left has succeeded in conducting a Marxist revolution that began 60 years ago, and that most of us didn’t notice it happen.

Observing the public reaction to unproven allegations of sexual abuse crimes against women of late, I’m becoming more and more convinced Hitchens is right.

The money shot:

Everything seems the same on the outside, as Peter Hitchens noted, but underneath a rot has set in. The Salem witch-hunt logic of Australia’s so-called intelligentsia class is a very disturbing, and currently highly visible, sign.

What was the mistake, exactly? Well, they waited too long to start raising rates, and as I wrote in that piece last February, the longer you wait the more rates have to rise, and more quickly.

Now they’re in danger of getting left behind again – on the way down – because they have resumed the grotesque idea that human misery is the only way to control prices – that is, using unemployment and putting families into mortgage stress.

All the mainstream experts kept saying not to worry about inflation and that low rates were perfectly fine.

The independent analysts said "That is a recipe for disaster, the rates need to go up." and "You cannot borrow money for Covid support and not expect an impact on the economy down the line."

"May you live in interesting times"

Pringle filed her FOI request with the Central Adelaide Local Health Network on June 20, 2022, requesting “the following people provide emails sent and received by them referring to Nikolai Petrovsky, and/or Vaxine Pty Ltd, Louise Flood, Michael Cusack, Nicola Spurrier, Chris McGowan”.

Petrovsky has been publicly critical of COVID-19 vaccines approved by the federal government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and an advocate of Vaxine Pty Ltd’s own coronavirus jab, Covax-19.

Petrovsky’s vaccine has not been approved by the TGA.

Pringle, Petrovksy’s wife, told InDaily she was seeking access to information related to Vaxine Pty Ltd’s clinical trials and vaccine mandate exemptions for participants.

Australian company makes a protein based vaccine on-shore, ends up effectively ignored and many entities being uncooperative when reaching out in good faith.

Last week saw the collapse of Sun Cable, a pie-in-the-sky $35 billion plan by alternative energy enthusiasts, Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, to generate solar energy and transport it by cable 4,200 kilometres to Singapore. The taxpayer provided $14 million for the project’s solar system, Australian-developed 5B. But major spending, which amounted to $210 million before Andrew Forrest pulled the plug, came from the two entrepreneurs.

Last week also saw Energy Minister Chris Bowen release his consultation for the disarmingly named Powering the Regions Fund. A centrepiece of this was weaponising the ‘Safeguard Mechanism’ from the emission reporting requirement that the Coalition introduced, into a requirement that the top 215 facilities reduce their emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 or buy carbon credits at a cost of up to $75 per tonne.

Eco-facism is expensive.

Headline is a bit misleading though, only the first paragraph relates to it. The rest of the article is all about those fine people in Canberra.

The incidents last year included a spate of online threats, letters delivered to electorate offices, verbal altercations and destruction of property.

Federal police have experienced an increase in reports of direct threats to MPs since about 2017 but the numbers have tripled in the past three years. Many MPs put the rise in threats down to a surge in far-right extremism and conspiracy movements.

In 2022, the AFP investigated 548 reports of harassment, nuisance and other threats.

Can assure you it is not "far-right extremism" and "conspiracy movements". It is the increasing disconnect between people in power and the common man.

While I do not approve of threats in this manner, it should give pause how broken society is that it pushes people to respond in this manner.

The replacement of fossil fuels (and nuclear) by wind and solar is said to be a ‘transition’ implying, like that from sail to steam and horse to motor power, that this is being inexorably pushed by consumers adopting a lower cost technology. In fact, the ‘transition’, wherever it is taking place, is due to government subsidies and regulations. Not one significant unit of wind or solar power generation anywhere in the world has been installed without such assistance.

Moreover, a wind/solar-rich electricity system requires expensive features that are naturally present or available at a trivial cost in systems dominated by coal, gas, or nuclear generation. Among these are ‘system strength’ and frequency control, both of which are automatically present in the ‘synchronous’ spinning machines in coal, gas, and nuclear plants but need to be carefully managed and separately arranged for the ‘asynchronous’ wind and solar facilities.

Going "Green" is hard and expensive. Yet the people advocating for these things cannot look past their feelings and see the totality of consequences and practicality.

Conservatives never should have surrendered the ground of environmental conservation to the radicalised, collectivised, totalitarian Left.

Since becoming custodians of the environment, left-wing politicians, bureaucracies, and businesses have done little except monetise the rapid expansion of renewable energy which, ironically, is one of the most wasteful and destructive technologies in modern history.

Far from ‘saving the planet’, these environmentalists have made their intentions perfectly clear – and we should listen to them.

Worth reading in full, with a fantastic closing segment.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou

Queensland will introduce more severe punishments for violent offenders in the wake of the stabbing death of North Lakes mother Emma Lovell.

The new measures target young offenders in particular, with sentencing to take into account an accused's previous criminal activity and bail history.

New penalties have been announced despite repeated warnings from advocates that there are no "overnight solutions" to curb youth crime, along with calls for a focus on preventive measures.

Rather then making things better for young people, and there-by making them less likely to offend in the first place, we just throw more money at the problem and nothing gets fixed. Just another day in politics.

With no disrespect to Aboriginal Australians, Christians, or indeed anyone who prays, the earnest Australian custom of the acknowledgment of country is, of course, a postmodern prayer, with “always was, always will be” serving as its postmodern “amen”. As a public prayer, it is not meant to be answered; it is meant to be heard. It is what the Spectator columnist James Bartholomew called a “virtue signal”: a public proclamation that one is “kind, decent and virtuous”—or put another way, that one holds “right, approved, liberal media-elite opinions”.

People who really believe that the homes from which they are Zooming always were and always will be Aboriginal land—stolen land, no less, that was never ceded to colonial Australia—should do the right thing and return their stolen homes to their local Aboriginal land councils.

Which then segueways into an interesting take comparing today's "woke" with latter-day Calvinism.

The Money Shot:

People who want to do good, generally do good without making too much of a fuss about it. But people who only want to be seen to be good, without actually having to do anything about it, recite the acknowledgment of country—and the more elaborate, the better.

This.

The European Union has long been known as a collection of bad ideas. On brand, it has decided to become the creator of the world’s largest and most complicated carbon-pricing system. Setting aside the absurdity of going to war with life’s essential building block, the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) promises to disrupt global supply chains, create significant trade problems, and inspire other nations – such as Australia – to join in.

The existence of this carbon tax conversation serves as confirmation that Net Zero products are substandard, undesirable to the public, and unable to compete in a fair and free marketplace. To force these so-called ‘cheap’ and ‘climate friendly’ industries onto society, trillions of dollars have been taken from the public purse, along with the establishment of punitive measures against market competitors (including entire countries). This is never mentioned when politicians wave their arms around and talk vaguely about ‘saving the planet’. If Net Zero technologies were truly all the shiny marketing pamphlets promised, no such coercive legislative behaviour would be necessary.

The European Union, the "gift" that keeps on "giving".

Bah-humbug! Sorry people to snow on your parade (or should it be “sorry, snowflakes to rain on your parade”) but there is something you should know about the supposedly jolly good fellow who brings you presents once a year: he is really a communist. Don’t believe me?

SensibleChuckle.gif

The ABC has been slammed for hiding key facts and misleading their audience in a hit-job produced by Sarah Ferguson for the Four Corners program on Donald Trump, Fox News and the January 6th Capitol protests.

An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found the program presented by Sarah Ferguson omitted key facts in such a way as to mislead the audience and breached accuracy and fairness requirements in the ABC’s code of practice. The ACMA said the program also included views that were expressed in “strident terms” and were “subjective”.

So in other words the ABC is biased to the left, hates Fox News and despises Donald Trump. Not really breaking news for anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock at the bottom of a very deep lake for the last three decades.

Imagine my shock.

Dr Peter McCullough, a widely recognised and prominent commentator regarding the danger of Covid vaccines, has been invited to speak in Australia alongside United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet and the former member for Hughes Craig Kelly.

‘Activists’ are campaigning against his entrance into Australia, petitioning the Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles. They want him to deny McCullough’s visa on the grounds that McCullough is ‘spreading misinformation’.

Interestingly, these activists have no interest in addressing the misinformation dished out by the government, vaccine manufacturers, the TGA, or the AMA.

Dr. McCullough has been consistently proven right. I do not think he has any trouble coming in, if he does get denied entry it will get very awkward.

Lula was sworn as the new President of Brazil on January 1. He had been the nation’s elected President from 2002-10. Lula, who has served prison time for his involvement in corruption, apparently won 50.90 per cent of the vote and the conservative candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, received 49.10 per cent.

It was an unexpected comeback for the far-left politician who was responsible for the biggest series of corruption scandals in the nation’s history. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady reminds us that:

‘The evidence against Lula was solid and his conviction had been confirmed by two appeals court. But the high court reversed its own precedents and annulled the decision. It knew that the statute of limitations didn’t leave time for a retrial. Lula was released but never exonerated.’

"Democracy" is a funny thing.

For more than 80 per cent of time, Earth has been a warm wet greenhouse planet with no ice. We live in unusual times, when ice occurs on continents. This did not happen overnight. The great southern continent, Gondwanaland, formed about 550 million years ago. It occupied 20 per cent of the area of our planet and included Antarctica, South America, Australia, South Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Gondwanaland was covered by ice when it drifted across the South Pole 360-255 million years ago. Evidence for this ice age is in the black coal districts of Australia, South Africa and India.

The breakup of Gondwanaland started about 180 million years ago. About 140-120 million years ago, Australia was joined to Antarctica and enjoyed a temperate climate, had alpine glaciers that shed icebergs into warm seas and plant and animal adaptations evolved to cope with the long periods of winter darkness.

The money shot:

We have a crisis of single-minded stupidity exacerbated by a dumbed-down education system supported by incessant propaganda, driven by financial interests and political activist authoritarianism.

This.

For many Australians, the rent crisis is just starting. Advertised rents have been soaring, but mainly for new rentals – so called “asking rents”.

The broadest measure of rents actually paid – the rents on the 480,000 or so capital city properties the Bureau of Statistics uses to calculate the consumer price index – has climbed only modestly, increasing 3.5% in the year to October.

Rent cuts during the first year of COVID mean the Bureau’s measure of capital city rents is just 2.2% above where it was in February 2020, ahead of the COVID lockdowns.

But advertised rents are climbing steeply. According to property consultants SQM Research, they are an extraordinary 35% higher than in February 2020.

Balanced article from The Conversation (which usually leans very far left).

What would fix this properly though, is having a sound and sensible government that understands printing / lending money creates inflation.

"The bill comes due." - Baron Mordo

Major institutions have added new rules which state that the use of AI is cheating, with some students already caught using the software. But one AI expert has warned universities are in an “arms race” they can never win.

ChatGPT, which generates text on any subject in response to a prompt or query, was launched in November by OpenAI and has already been banned across all devices in New York’s public schools due to concerns over its “negative impact on student learning” and potential for plagiarism.

Next week: "Australian universities discover cohort of foreign students no longer passing, after introduction of oral presentations and 'pen and paper' exams impacting KPI's"

Australian Communications and Media Authority wants social media companies to hand over information on how they respond to complaints

Australia’s updated misinformation code still fails to tackle large-scale group messaging and needs tougher requirements for digital media companies to report on harm reduction, according to the media regulator.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said it welcomed the new voluntary code of practice on disinformation and misinformation, released in late December but signalled it would continue to push for powers to compel social media companies to hand over information about how they are combatting misinformation and dealing with complaints.

If I remember correctly WhatsApp is very popular amongst politicians in Australia. Messages sent and received through WhatsApp do not fall under the regular record keeping rules.

Politcians are great misinformation spreaders.

Putting one and one together makes things very awkward.

Some foreigners have now been banned from purchasing residential property in Canada, according to a new law that took effect on 1 January.

The controversial measure has been enacted to relieve pressure on the housing market and make housing more affordable for Canadians.

With housing affordability in Australia described by some as a housing “crisis”, would a similar policy alleviate some pressure on the local market?

Canada’s two-year ban stops foreign buyers (with exceptions for refugees and permanent citizens) from purchasing residential properties in Canada’s cities.

The same Canada that let in 430,000 "New Canadians" in 2022.

At the end of the day, housing depends on resources, when a resource becomes scarce (be it land, materials, labour, etc), prices go up. And, I am sure there are still plenty of loop holes.

Given the risk posed by the closed-door lobbying group more commonly known as the World Economic Forum, this year The Spectator Australia will be keeping a close eye on their latest projects and what they could mean for Australia if our politicians and large corporate CEOs decide to adopt their ideas.

Just as the Australian government’s hated Digital Identity legislation was the creation of this loosely defined international group, there are other dangerous ideas on the horizon that could severely impact the liberty and prosperity of Western citizens. Either that, or their ideas are so crazy we may simply issue them with a Darwin Award.

The money shot:

One might expect Australian politicians to fight against this international quasi-socialist bureaucratic ecosystem and defend Australian businesses. Unfortunately, we have a lack of citizen education when it comes to Green Economics and ‘net zero’ pushback from the press, who are either too afraid to question the eco-fascist movement or are hoping for nice kickbacks from corporations profiting by making everyone else poorer.

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher

A number of the QR codes posted around the Melbourne CBD have been overlaid with alternative codes.

These codes, which the ABC has seen, lead to a documentary about hip hop culture on YouTube.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said it was not yet known how many of the QR codes had been vandalised, but believed it was still small in number.

"The hacking of the QR codes is so frustrating," the Lord Mayor said.

Tee Hee.

One of the most popular new year’s resolutions is to exercise more. Many of us set ambitious goals requiring a big, regular commitment, but then abandon them because they’re too much to fit in. Plans to exercise more in the new year are often broken within a month.

So how can we exercise more regularly in the new year?

If the aim is to build long-term fitness and health, the exercise must be sustainable. It may be achievable to resolve to do an extra few minutes of muscle-strengthening exercises every day.

Fair and balanced apart from the overly cuddly headline. Got to start somewhere and going straight to the gym does not work for everyone.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns in Vietnam last year, blogger Bui Van Thuan took to Facebook to criticise a government plan to use soldiers to deliver groceries to people confined to their homes in Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr Thuan, 41, a former teacher in the country's northern province of Hoa Binh, was last month sentenced to eight years in prison for propaganda, and a further five years of probation.

Vietnamese authorities charged Mr Thuan with "making, storing, disseminating or propagandising information, materials and products that aim to oppose" the nation.

Remember: Propaganda and censorship are only bad when Asian countries do it. We would not dream of nudging people with fact checkers and misleading headlines in the West. Amirite ?